The Man the Illuminati didn't want to become President in 2008!, page 2

I'm a private pilot and fly frequently in the area in which JFK2 had his accident. There was no storm. There was no rain. We experience haze up here for most of the summer and it makes VFR flying difficult but it doesn't constitute IFR conditions by any means. JFK certainly had enough experience to safely make the flight had he paid attention to what he was doing. He had some IFR instruction (in addition to the basic IFR procedures we all learn when training for our private pilots license). The problem with haze --- especialy in the waning hours of daylight and most especially over water --- is that it makes the ability to visually discern the horizon (the visual reference we use to maintain level flight) very difficult. This means that we must consult our flight instruments (especially but not only the artificial horizon) more frequently. JFK was trained to do this but he evidently did not.

What very likely happened was this: JFK did not keep checking his instruments to verify straight and level flight and he was not using his autopilot. He slowly dropped a wing tip (the most common thing that happens when a pilot becomes inattentive) which put the plane in a slowly increasing descending turn. This would begin to increase airspeed. At some point he noticed the high airspeed and likely noticed a high rate of descent. What he did next sealed his fate. When he realized the plane was descending at a high rate of speed he panicked and attempted to pull the nose up to stop the descent. Unfortunately for him the wings were not level. We've all seen a figure skater doing a spin with arms outstretched who then pulls their arms in and spins much faster. If an aircraft is in a descending turn and you pull the yoke back (in an attempt to pull the nose up) what actually happens is that the plane responds by moving perpendicularly to the wing. If the wings were level then that action would have brought the nose up. But with a wingtip dropped and in a descending turn (aka spiral) pulling the yoke back would only tighten and accelerate the spiral (like the skater) because the perpendicular force is pointed toward the center of the spiral. He basically cork-screwed into the sea.

I apologize for the long, detailed post but I get this question thrown at me all the time. It seems like this is an unusual event only because the pilot was JFK2. As aircraft accidents go it isn't all that uncommon. CFIT (control flight into terrain) either happens this way or by flying into a mountain because the pilot is not flying a published approach/departure profile. Pilot error. It's almost always pilot error. No conspiracy here. Bad piloting. Sorry.